Don McCullin talks to Richard Ovenden

Outstanding British photojournalist Sir Donald McCullin talks about his life and work in conversation with Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden and receives the Bodley Medal for his outstanding contribution to photography and journalism.

McCullin has left a trail of iconic 20th-century images, ranging from the construction of the Berlin Wall to the Falklands War. His photography at the Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s turned him into a hero. He specialised in capturing the underside of society with photographs that depicted the unemployed, downtrodden and impoverished. When the Beatles wanted new photographs, they turned to McCullin, as did Francis Bacon when he wanted a portrait.

McMullin worked for the Sunday Times for 18 years and covered every major conflict in his working lifetime until the Falklands War. He chronicled his own life in his autobiography Unreasonable Behaviour.

First presented in 2002, previous recipients of the Bodley Medal at the festival have included Peter Carey (2012), Hilary Mantel (2013), Nicholas Hytner (2014), Ian McEwan (2015), Mary Beard (2016), William Boyd (2017), Claire Tomalin (2018), Kazuo Ishiguro (2019), Zadie Smith (2022), Colm Tóibín (2023) and Ali Smith (2024).  Robert Caro (2022) was the first person to receive his award at the North American edition of the Bodley Medal presentation.

Presented by the Bodleian Libraries.